Yesterday the streets nearby had started to turn to a nasty slush and the air temperature was relatively mild, considering there was thawing snow on the ground. Who knows what the rest of February has in store? But, just in case that snowfall is all we're having of winter, I thought I'd best take a few snaps for posterity.
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| ~ Monarda seed head against the snow. The green is fennel. ~ |
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| ~ Footprints show that a fox has visited, as have several little birds. ~ |
This photo reminds me that I need to cut back my autumn fruiting raspberry canes. This is a job which should be done very soon, otherwise last year's canes will begin to grow and the idea is to have a better harvest by cutting at least half of them back. (I'm experimenting with a tip to see the difference between cutting some to the ground and leaving some at 40 cm - should give me an earlier crop. )
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| ~ The winter veg patch ~ |
And here's the veg patch in the snow. Looks a bit of a mess and reminds me that there's a lot of work to be done once the ground thaws. The lovely thing is that if I look back in a few months, this view will have completely changed. I'm thinking about what to plant where in order to make best use of the space and, rather excitingly, our new Director of Housing has said that he's all for expanding the space into a kitchen garden! ... but perhaps I should have got that in writing. The cot sides and trellis panels, by the way, were all found over the summer months discarded by the road and dragged back as quick protection to keep cats out of newly planted beds. I must plan a way to fix them from toppling over because they do work.
And I couldn't leave this post without a pic of the snowman that the kids made, could I? This chap was resisting the thaw yesterday and standing guard over the other end of the garden. One benefit of living on an estate where there's plenty of clean snow for building with!
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| Flowerpot fez, dogwood arms and bark chipping for eyes. (Coal is a bit hard to come by around here!) |
Without wishing to sound too curmudgeonly, I'm quite pleased that the snow has almost gone. Things are definitely easier without it, although I suppose the children were hoping for a few days off school. (Our schools remained open, thank goodness.)
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